Woo hoo! I've got a special Spotlight for you today - a recap of the CookieCon 2018 Sugar Show, which concluded with much fanfare only a couple of days ago! As you may or may not know, CookieCon is the largest cookie-only convention in the United States, and, among other things, host to a Sugar Show (picture a never-ending sea of decorated cookies on display!).
Unlike other cookie competitions across the country, this show is not judged by teams of professional sugar artists toting score sheets, but is instead evaluated more personally by a jury of cookier peers! Over the course of the show, CookieCon attendees cast votes for their favorite cookies in each of four categories. First, second, and third place winners are then determined by this popular vote. This year, those categories were Television, Autumn Time, Anything Goes, and Mystery Shape. (See the category descriptions below.)
In all categories but Mystery Shape, cookiers labored over their designs well in advance and brought them to the show in hopes of taking home top honors. By contrast, Mystery Shape entrants were given a surprise cookie shape at the show and were then required to decorate it in a specified (and very limited) period of time. Talk about pressure! 
In addition, the CookieCon core instructors, keynote speaker, and a couple of special sponsors selected their faves, dubbed the "Instructor's Choice" and "Sponsor's Choice" awards. Attendees also had the option of participating in a non-judged collaboration called "CookieCon Motorway".
Thanks to Mike and Karen Summers, CookieCon organizers extraordinaire, we here on Cookie Connection are privy to the only published recap of the winners, apart from what people witnessed at the actual CookieCon awards ceremony last Saturday. So hold onto your pastry bags; you're about to be blown away by the depth of talent that was on display! Congrats to all of the winners, and also to all who entered. Entering takes tremendous courage and resolve, and is a huge accomplishment in and of itself!
Without further ado, the winners were . . .
Television
Autumn Time
Anything Goes
Mystery Shape
Instructor's Choice
The Mistress of Ceremonies, Anne Yorks of Flour Box Bakery, also weighed in . . .
And, for the final category . . .
Sponsor's Choice
Wonderful - what did I tell you?! Blown away, right?!
To conclude our special CookieCon 2018 Sugar Show Spotlight, I leave you with views of the very fun and fabulous "CookieCon Motorway" collaboration in both photo and video format - take your pick!
Remember, CookieCon 2019 is just six months away (see the event info here), so if you're planning to attend, you might want to take a deep (but quick!) breath and then get cracking on your showpiece! 
This coming Saturday, we'll resume our usual Spotlight, following our chat with CookieCon instructor @Jodi Till. I hope you'll join us in her chat room then (September 22, 10 am central time)!
Credits:
Thanks again to Karen and Mike Summers of CookieCon for providing the winners' graphics, and to photographer Lindy Wall for taking the cookie photos for those graphics. Thanks also to Bev Parker and Aniseh Ebbini, two of our CookieCon Correspondents, for providing the remaining photos and videos for this post. For cookie credits, please refer to the names in each winner's graphic.
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